Crooked Man: A Hard-Boiled but Humorous New Orleans Mystery (Tubby Dubonnet Series #1) (The Tubby Dubonnet Series) by Tony Dunbar Page A

people in the DEA, and those guys had radar, helicopters, the works. This was turning out to be a piece of cake.
    After Casey hung up, Monique prayed to the telephone that it would all work out okay. He had said no harm would come to Darryl. Would he lie? There was no way she was going to tell Darryl what she had done. She crossed her knees like a yogi and closed her eyes. She put her mind on hold and let winds of guilt and fear whip around her. She finally calmed down enough to turn on the TV and fall asleep.

SEVEN
    On Sunday morning, bright and early, Tubby picked up his youngest daughter, Collette, for church. It was something they had been doing together for a month now, motivated by Collette. Tubby wasn’t sure why a fourteen-year-old girl had a renewed interest in church attendance, but it was more than all right with him. Other girls her age were smoking crack and dropping out of school. If she wanted to join the Young Republicans he would pay the dues, though his upstate relatives had voted Democrat since before the war. The services were relaxing, too. The organ music and the rituals smoothed out his mental wrinkles, and he wondered why he had not bothered to come for so many years. It filled up a day that was often empty of late.
    At the conclusion of the service, after shaking hands with the priest and promising to come back, they walked over to Audubon Park and took a stroll around the lagoon. It was a pretty morning, and they shared the pathways with joggers and Rollerbladers in colorful attire and young mothers, in pairs, giving their Newman-bound babies some air.
    They went down to the graveled edge of the pond to watch a small boy feed the ducks. A fat old drake with muddy feet boldly waddled over to them to investigate the food possibilities. Collette tossed a dandelion in its direction. It pecked the flower, then made a clumsy departure.
    “Do these ducks live here, or are they just passing through?” she asked.
    “The white ones live here. I think the ones with the green heads are migrating. They’re probably very happy to find a place where nobody is shooting at them.”
    “Who would shoot such pretty birds?” she mused to herself.
    Tubby didn’t remind her about his own hunting trips.
    “What are you doing this afternoon?” he asked. He was thinking he might invite her to go to the movies or go skating or something.
    “Mom and I are going shopping for a prom dress. My prom is Friday night.”
    “You can’t have a prom in the eighth grade,” he said.
    “Of course we do.” Obviously a stupid statement.
    “Who are you going with, Jeffrey?” That was a safe bet. She had been friends with Jeffrey for years. He was a Ben Franklin student. And he had a driver’s license.
    “Yes, there are four of us going together. It’s all very well organized and properly chaperoned.” She had the bases covered.
    “Well, call me if you need anything.”
    “You mean, like, money?”
    “Heck no, not money.”
    “What else would I need?”
    “You never can tell.”
    “Oh, you mean like the time you rescued Debbie?”
    “Yeah,” he laughed. “Something like that.” He had been at a deposition. His client had been in the “hot seat.” For some reason, either because the opposing attorney was from out of town or because there was a hearing set for the next day—Tubby couldn’t remember—they were holding the deposition after hours. The issue was a commercial real-estate transaction gone sour. The plaintiff thought Tubby’s client—who was Monster Mudbug’s father—had promised to sell him a building, then broken his word and sold it to someone else. He believed he was aggrieved by all the profits he would have made if he had been able to purchase the building, then tear it down and put up a hotel. It was dragging along past nine o’clock, and the questioning from opposing counsel, Bob Thomas, had degenerated into something like:
    “I’ll show you Deposition Exhibit Four. This is